Jan
What Will Make Your Digital Signage Campaign A Success?
When deploying a digital signage solution, there is far more to a successful deployment and project than just a large display. Over the next couple of articles we will address each piece of hardware, so your digital signage campaign will be a success even before you start to plan it.
Like a thoroughbred sports car, dynamic signage is built for performance with attractive looks, but what is the first thing you see when you see a digital sign? It is either an LCD or plasma display.
Apart from the attractive display just like the sports car there are parts that separate it from the rest and are the main parts of the solution. What is under the hood of a car? It is the engine and what is the driving part of any digital advertising hardware – this is the media player, so we will look at this first.
Digital Media Player.
When you look into digital media players that are used in Digital Out Of Home advertising, you can forget he media players that we all associate with playing music whilst we are on the move.
These DMP’s (digital media players) are unique due to the video chipsets that are integral to the onboard circuit board, now they come in different operating systems similar to computers. From Linux, XP and Microsoft embedded operating systems.
Disc Driven Players.
There are two types of DMP’s, these are ones that incorporate internal disc drives and solid state players (no moving parts) they all store the media that is displayed on the customer facing displays in either shopping malls, restaurants, bars, airports or transportation hubs. The disc driven player needs internal cooling this is due to the two internal discs spinning in opposite directions creating a magnetic charge as well as heat that needs dissipating, as well as the onboard cooling they are also required to be stored in well ventilated areas otherwise the disc drive will fail, due to overheating. These are viewed in the Industry as a less efficient solution due to their moving parts.
Solid State Players.
Also referred to as SSD’s (Solid State Discs), these drives do not have any moving parts, rather than its counterpart that is disc driven. SSD’s advantages are:
• They use less volatile memory
• They are faster in operation
• Lifespan is longer than Disc Driven Players
It has been proven that a typical hard drive will last 2-3 years whilst a solid state player will last 10 years.
Drawback – the cost of ownership of a solid state player is more expensive, than owning a disc driven player including all the maintenance costs and downtime.
One media player or a network of them?
We will now look at the options for controlling the content on the screens, so there are only 2 real options: a single media player or a network of media players – each have benefits and limitations.
Single Player controller from one central location.
This configuration runs all the displays from a central location from one computer with one media player, the player will have multiple video cards for the separate media content that is being displayed on the different screens.
Advantages – integrators only have to worry about one player to monitor and ensure the uptime is as high as possible.
Drawbacks – there only has to be one problem to bring the entire dynamic signage system to a standstill.
Saying that, this is the preferred solution in the Industry.
Network of Media Players.
Each display would be connected to its own DMP that will display content for this specific display in this specific location. Now if there is a problem with any configuration it is only to the local display and will not impact on the entire network.
Advantages – Should a problem occur locally it will only effect one display, rather than the entire network.
Disadvantages – It more expensive to deploy and manage.
No matter which you choose, you must make sure that you use an open format player, this will allow different media formats to be used and played.
If you are to use these DMPs outdoors, you are best to choose a fanless unit as the SSD’s are perfect for the robust nature and low maintenance, as well a special media player an outdoor digital signage solution must have a suitable steel enclosure that has it’s own heating and cooling to provide the ideal environment inside the enclosure, whilst outside could be -30 degrees Fahrenheit.
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